Under socialism the incentive is different. The incentive to come up with more efficient ways to do things is that we'd have to work less time to do the same amount of work, which means, more free time, vacation, more time for research, etc. "The amount of NECESSARY labor needed to produce the things we NEED."

Under capitalism, the ruling class does everything they can to effect the way we think. Through media, education, religion, etc. we are raised with values of a capitalist system, which is that 'dog eat dog', 'every man for himself' "bling bling" mentality. This isn't human nature, this is something we have been conditioned to think. Or in Marx's explanation - a form of false consciousness.

This kind of mentality doesn't benefit the common man...only the very rich.

This mentality would slowly go away under socialism. Since conditions determine consciousness, new generations would see the world entirely different. Think about when a baby is born. It does not know about race, violence, sexual harassment, being materialistic, greed, etc. it only learns about these things when they are passed down by society.

But in reality self-interest remains under socialism. Workers will form a class consciousness by understanding where their true self-interest lay. The bourgeoisie on the other hand have a self-interest under capitalism, in this case a class interest in controlling the class consciousness of the workers - shoring up the false consciousness of the workers that their self-interest lay with the promotion of the class system (remember the old slogan that what's good for GM is good for America--nationalism is a good tool for propping up false consciousness as is religion).

We have to disagree on that one then because I don't have as much faith as you do in human behavior.

You are right, children are ignorant to racism, sexism or anything like this but they learn it very quickly as they get older. There's a reason man has migrated to what he knows best and who looks just like him.

See IMO evolution, while correct in it's assumptions, contradicts what humans want. Evolution says the weak will die off, the diseased, the elderly.

Yet we as humans want to take care of the weak, the elderly, the mentally handicapped.

I think socialism, true socialism sounds great and in theory is something that appeals to the masses, especially if it's the poor.

In countries like Venezuela, it appealed to the poor because they had nothing there from before. It's not because the system of democracy or capitalism was flawed there but because again, HUMAN CORRUPTION.

So the rich exploited the poor under the guise of democracy and then when Chavez promised equality under socialism, he continues to exploit them under a different banner.

So you are much more of an optimist than me I guess. In your Utopia, everything will be fine, I believe that humans are incapable of living under those conditions because human nature will eventually take over.

That's why we need the checks and balances to make sure not one person or person's have all the power. Because mistakes will be made, count on that, the question is, can we bounce back from them or have a good enough system to fix it?